INTELLECTUAL CONSERVATIVE

Iranian political prisoner Sadegh Sistani from the Iranian opposition organization MEK recently escaped. His report? “Hundreds waiting in the gallows while the UN-US welcomes their butcher.”
 
As the motorcade of the Iranian President, Ahmadinejad moved towards the UN General Assembly for a predicted venomous speech and a mockery of World conscience, Iranian state-controlled media announced a new toll of death sentences for a group of 54 activists.

The ruling Iranian regime is an oppressive one that mixes theocracy with autocracy and extreme expansionist ideology that continues to defy the international community. It has proven that it absolutely denies the people and even members of its elite any form of Freedom.
 
I took the opportunity to ask a prominent veteran Iranian political prisoner who escaped torture only last April about the situation of his fellow prisoners back in Iran.

Sadegh Sistani, escaped Iran after enduring years of imprisonment under the present regime.

“There are thousands of political prisoners packed in hundreds of prisons in Iran. Tens of families which include whole families at times affiliated to the MEK, are in deploring inhuman conditions. Women are volatile, and suffer the most. Sexual harassment and misuse have been routine for woman political prisoners. During the 1980 executions of hundreds of MEK affiliates, a Fatwa by Khomeini allowed rape of young girls in order to make sure their spirits would not go to heaven. (They believed that sinned girls would not be allowed to heaven).

Others had their blood drained before death according to a separate Fatwa. The present regime president, Ahmadinejad, was one of the tens of torturers in the notorious Evin prison at the time. He is now shaking hands with his official counterparts. It is the same hand who pulled the trigger that killed tens in executions according to living witnesses.”

Sadegh Sistani, continued explaining the present situation; “The brutality of this regime towards families of MEK in Iran has not limits. A young mother of three toddlers is still paying the price of the “terror tag.” Her name I will disclose for her protection. She was abducted from her house as her little ones were screaming out of fear. The mother was dragged away for no apparent reason and has been in prison since. Her interrogator, a notorious torturer of the 1980s ‘Salavati’ told her: “You are paying the price of your sister and brother (supporters of the MEK and executed earlier) *1. The interrogator had asked for her children’s presence so that they would “cry their hearts out” to give him relief!

Sistani said: “In a letter smuggled out, she has bravely disclosed her ordeal and appealed to ‘World Conscience’:

“This is a FREE country, and its President Ahmadinejad claims there is total FREEDOM, where Human Rights is respected and where people have no fear of persecution. Indeed, a country in which “Breathing and being ALIVE” is a CRIME.

A place in which, a mourning mother in black has no right to cry for the loss of her darlings. Indeed, it is a role model for Freedom and Democracy!

I know very well that by writing this letter, I am accepting the worst to come, but all I want to be to voice of the many innocent in these prisons, who are suffering the cost of appeasement with the mullahs.”

“There is always hope in the dark dungeons, where your voice is not heard, and all you have desired for seems remote. That hope builds on your perseverance and resolve to stand firm on all you ever lived for: Freedom.”
Mr. Sistani said: “As this mother of three, MEK supporter has written “HOPE’” is still there, but is this still a value for the US Administration and President Obama?”

The voice for change has been resonating in comments and speeches by US senior officials supporting the movement and its struggle to establish democracy in Iran.

Dr. Sarah Sewall from Harvard Kennedy School of Government elaborated the conflict of foreign policy interests and true American values during a symposium in Washington DC and said:

“What is interesting for me concerning the issue of Democracy and Human Rights in Iran is that often, for the United States we see a significant conflict in our foreign policy between the values that America has held dear and, indeed, was founded upon and the interests of the United States of America as it plots its foreign policy and manages the affairs of state. The extraordinary issue is values, and interests are joined in a common framework for approaching the questions of Iran and democracy and human rights. Such clash in the conduct of foreign policy; so often leading to inconsistency; reversals of fortune, charges of hypocrisy; has now actually an opportunity to be reconciled.”She referred to a “third way’” in the approach towards Iran.

Published in the New York Post, a recent appeal, by dozens of senior US officials to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon to “Save Ashraf Now,” Human Rights has been the prior concern amidst all other pragmatic and long-term interests.

We in America may have very different views about the relative success and the cost-benefit trade-off of that kind of an approach, bearing in mind Iraq-Afghanistan experience and its unintended consequences. The “third Option” argued for the past years by the MEK is the inevitable remedy.

The “Third Option” was offered by the Opposition movement years ago as an anti-thesis to “War” or “appeasement” mostly propagated by counter and pro Iranian Lobbyists in Capitol Hill. It simply leaves the complex and expensive challenge of resolving the clerical extremism, to the Iranian resistance movement and the Iranian people.

Gen.Shelton in a symposium in Washington said: “The MEK is the most formidable opposition to the regime in Tehran. It has challenged the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism for the past 32 years and provides hope for the current Iranian people. It provides a degree of hope that far exceeds anything else that we or our allies can offer short of direct intervention.”

So what more is left and why is there no change in the country while others in the region will follow the Gale of democratic change?

The Reuters reported, “’The opposition (green movement) is leaderless and lacks any strategy.. is following the Arab uprisings with a mixture of envies and regret for its own failure.” The spirited youths who marched the streets during the 2009 uprisings were betrayed by Moussavi as he cowed to the Supreme Leader. They are pinning hope on yet a more reliable handle to grab.

However, there is a barrier that has blocked their path.

The US Foreign List of Terrorist Organization has for long favored the Ayatollahs in Tehran by enchaining the only remaining organized and capable movement.

“The List is a direct handshake with our butchers in Iran. The Mullahs managed to massacre 120,000 of MEK supporters through a fatwa. The organization was the exact anti-thesis to the clerical fascists in Iran. They believed in a tolerant Islam that based “Democracy and Peace” as its corner stone for progress and social change. It promoted complete Gender Equality, which is the landmark for any progressive society. Women from the leadership Council in the movement and recently in a democratic election, a new Secretary General was polled by members.” Said Sistani.

Ironically, as much as the clerical regime is misogynous in nature, it is an organization with “Women Leadership” which is the fear of its life and is an existential threat.

As Sistani takes a deep breath, he insisted on fatal repercussions of the enlisting:

“Keeping the 45-year-old movement in the US list, has provided a good excuse for both the Mullahs and Maliki to kill, hang and massacre us anywhere and when possible. It has enchained our ability to be used to reveal and prevent ongoing vile Human Right violations by the mullahs. It has simply put the US on the side of our butchers.”

THE HUFFINGTON POST

Once again, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has used the United Nations podium to churn out his misinformation and half-truths. And once again, the American media accepted his invitation for a fancy luncheon afterwards, enabling a ruthless murderer to wage his not-so-charm offensive. Apparently, some media outlets just want Ahmadinejad to say something, anything, as long as they get their story.

Children at an anti-Ahmadinejad rally outside the UN headquarters stomp on a poster of the controversial Iranian president before he is scheduled to speak at the UN General Assembly, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011, in the Manhattan borough of New York. A few hundred demonstrators turned out to hear former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former UN Ambassador John Bolton speak. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Has no one learned anything from the free passes provided to Ahmadinejad’s allies, such as Moammar Qaddafi of Libya and Bashar Assad of Syria?

Ahmadinejad allocated almost the entirety of his speech to just about anything unrelated to the clerical rulers of Iran. He talked about flooding in Pakistan, famine in Somalia, how a large percentage of the world’s population earns so little, and how a small percentage of the world’s population has so much. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

Next he took on an authoritative posture, portraying himself as an engineer who knows that the two planes that hit the Twin Towers could not have brought those buildings down. (Huh!) Of course, one might wonder when he practiced his sophisticated engineering skills, in that he has spent pretty much all of his adult life first as a chief thug, organizing hooligans to attack and beat up students in the early days after the revolution, then as a notorious torturer in Evin prison, and later as a commander of the terrorist Qods Force during the Iran-Iraq war.

But what is more important is what Ahmadinejad did not address. He addressed numerous problems around the world, held America responsible for much of the world’s misery, but did not talk about the Arab Spring; no mention of Libya, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, or Yemen.

He attacked world powers for intervening in other countries’ affairs, but stayed off the topic of his Revolutionary Guards’ helping Bashar Assad to violently suppress the revolt in Syria; and avoided details of how his regime used violence, bribery, intimidation, and blackmail to put Iraq’s defeated Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki back in office and deny the winning candidate, Ayad Allawi, a substantive role in the political process in Iraq.

Nor did he mention his use of proxies in the Iraqi Government to kill dozens of Iranian dissidents and former political prisoners who had taken refuge across the border in Camp Ashraf, Iraq in 2009 and 2011. No wonder that while most of the delegations left the General Assembly Hall when Ahmadinejad started speaking, the Iraqi delegation remained, cheering him on.

Ahmadinejad expressed concern about three billion people in the world not earning enough to live, but failed to mention the fact that as many as 80 percent of the Iranian population live below the poverty line; the official figures put it at 55 percent. He attacked the West for making exorbitant profits, but said nothing about his own closest allies in Iran, the ruling clerics and their cronies, who are plundering billions of dollars, dominating the nation’s industry, and running or taking a cut from all business in the country.

And lastly, he said nothing about the rising rate of executions in Iran, this year’s numbers close to 490 so far, higher even than last year. Since he spoke at the last General Assembly session, his State Security Forces and the Iranian Judiciary have sentenced to death or already executed more Iranian dissidents whose only crime was peaceful participation in the anti-government demonstrations in Iran.

But let’s not be picky about the facts. Especially since again this year, prominent American media were invited to a fancy lunch after his ranting at the UN, for a taste of more of his rhetoric. The attendees are expected to throw him soft balls, and some went so far as to praise Ahmadinejad for being impressive, “well-prepared,” and speaking “confidently.”

But while Ahmadinejad spoke inside the UN, and hosted some journalists, the story outside was very different. He may be able to suppress the voices of dissent in Iran, escalate violence in Iraq, help Assad quash dissent in Syria, and defy international demands to desist enriching uranium, but in New York he was confronted by thousands of Iranian-Americans, who called him a murderer and insisted that he is not representative of the Iranian people.

That should have grabbed the headlines.

Alireza Jafarzadeh is author of ‘The Iran Threat’.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alireza-jafarzadeh/ahmadinejad-un-speech_b_978812.html

 THE HUFFINGTON POST

On Wednesday, September 21, Iran’s state-run media announced that the two American hikers held in Iran, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, were being released after more than two years in custody, just in time for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at the UN the following day. Not coincidentally, the third hiker, Sarah Shourd, was released a year ago just before Ahmadinejad’s last UN speech.

Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of 'The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis'

Ahmadinejad brazenly claimed that both releases were “humanitarian” gestures. No surprise there. But it is shocking, not to mention shameful, that he is allowed to get away with it by the various media, that conducts interviews, exclusives and gives him extensive airtime to churn out his propaganda.

Perhaps the media should think about tagging its interviews with Ahmadinejad: “Iran’s chief hostage-taker.”

Reminiscent of the mid-1980s and early 1990s, when the Iranian regime earned and kept the title of the world’s most active state-sponsor of terror, partly because of its involvement in hostage-taking in Lebanon. Local proxy groups brandishing Kalashnikovs would take Americans and Westerners hostage, and then Tehran, acting on a “humanitarian basis,” would take the negotiating seat to get them released in exchange for the concessions Tehran needed.

The Iran-Contra fiasco during the Reagan administration evolved from the desire to arrange the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon by pro-Tehran elements. In exchange, the erstwhile “moderates” among the ruling clerics of Iran asked for, and got, a few thousand TOW missiles and a terrorist label on Iran’s main opposition movement.

That policy has since evolved into a new form of hostage-taking. Over the past few years, particularly under Ahmadinejad, we have seen many Americans who had traveled to Iran, including journalists like Roxana Saberi, arrested, declared spies, sentenced to prison, and then eventually released.

What Tehran accomplishes is to take American foreign policy hostage. As the hostages linger in jail, the United States is dissuaded from pursuing a tougher approach regarding Iran, and persuaded to delay sanctions and drag its feet on decisions that run counter to the interests of the Iranian regime. Ultimately, Tehran’s rulers release the victims when it suits them, i.e. to coincide with Ahmadinejad’s visit to the United Nations.

Meanwhile, the entire region has been engulfed in uprisings. The world watches as the Arab Spring blossoms, and some of the mullahs’ closest allies fall or totter in Libya and Syria. To distract attention from the forces for change in the region, and in particular in Iran, Ahmadinejad puts on his dog-and-pony show, making the release of the hostages the news of the day. Does anyone remember that the hikers should have never been arrested to begin with, much less used as human shields for Tehran’s onslaught?

Ahmadinejad actions, however, cannot change the reality on the ground, where his regime is in deep trouble. At home, he struggles to deal with the internal infighting, even among the closest allies of Supreme Leader Khamenei, a moribund economy, and increased protests now spreading to ethnic areas. Over the past few weeks, anti-government demonstrations have been mounting in Western Azerbaijan Province, particularly in the city of Orumieh, where there is major discontent about the government’s destructive inaction on measures to prevent the drying of Lake Orumieh.

Discontent is widespread in Iran, where this year several more anti-government protestors and political prisoners have been sentenced to death on the bogus charge of “mohareb,” or waging war on God. Since January, the regime that Ahmadinejad presides over has killed a number of others for their association with the main organized opposition group and their participation in the 2009 uprising. Tehran has announced the hanging of over 450 people, including minors, some publicly.

In February, clashes between state security forces and hundreds of thousands of protesters wracked central Tehran. Security forces beat and fired tear gas at opposition supporters hoping to evoke an Egypt-like popular uprising.

As Ahmadinejad prepares to speak at the UN on Thursday, the media would do better to pay attention to the voices of change in Iran. Outside the UN, thousands of Iranian-Americans, many of them relatives of political prisoners in Iran or of those murdered by the Iranian regime, will stage a protest. Their message is to declare Ahmadinejad, once again, the representative of the most repressive regime in the region, and not the representative of the Iranian people.

This year, history will be made as the United Nations turns over Libya’s seat to its democratic representatives. Isn’t it time to do the same and turn over Iran’s seat to the Iranian opposition?

Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of ”The Iran Threat’

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alireza-jafarzadeh/iran-hikers-released_b_974686.html

THE HUFFINGTON POST

It was an early Friday morning. I woke up with the sound of the radio in our living room and the worried voice of my father who was trying to get a hold on an important news through the statics that the Iranian regime was throwing in to block the opposition broadcast. I had never seen my parents that distraught and devastated.

Zahra Rajabi

After some time went by, I went in and asked what had happened. I was told that my aunt, Zahra Rajabi, 39, one of the leading women in the struggle against the Iranian regime was brutally assassinated in Istanbul, Turkey. Iranian agents had tracked down her whereabouts and broke into her apartment, and shortly after killed her and one of her bodyguards by gunshots. That was the 20th February 1996.

I did not know and could not understand why anyone would want to kill a member of my family. Questions started swirling in my head and then I was told… “She died fighting for the freedom of Iran and its people.”

As a nine year old my perception of the word “freedom” changed that day. I realised that in my country Iran, and under the brutal government that we were living in, in order to have freedom, you had to fight and even pay the highest price that a human can, giving up one’s life.

Zahra Rajabi was a member of the People’s Mojahedin (PMOI), an Iranian opposition group that has been fighting for the freedom of Iran and Iranians for over three decades and has had its members threatened, tortured, humiliated and executed by the Iranian regime over the course of this period.

At the time of her assassination, Zahra was working for the rights of Iranian women and refugees in Turkey. She decided to rise against the mullahs’ regime after realising what a lie the Islamic revolution of Iran really was and what a disaster was becoming of Iran and Iranians under the mullahs’ fundamentalist interpretation of “Islam”.

She lost two of her loved ones at the beginning of the revolution when her husband Mohammad and her 20 year old sister Afsaneh were executed by the Iranian regime. No doubt this contributed to her cause of fighting for freedom and justice and made her become one of the bravest women of her time.

Her assassination meant that living in Iran was no longer an option for my family, as we had to live in constant fear of our lives everyday. Despite our love and passion for Iran, thousands and thousands of families like mine were forced to leave their homeland and take refuge in other parts of the world in order to stay alive.

The loss of loved ones and the trauma that my family went through still haunts me and affects me every single day. I feel a strong sense of responsibility to be the voice of Zahra and many other martyrs who gave up their lives fighting for freedom against the barbaric regime of Iran.

The Iranian people have been suppressed for over 30 years under the current regime and there are thousands of prisoners whose voices have never been heard. The PMOI is the only opposition group, which echoes the stories and voices of the victims, political prisoners and martyrs of Iran on a global scale. They should be recognised and credited as a group which are active for the purpose of liberty, humanity and justice.

History has shown that yes dictators may rule, but they are always defeated at the end. The dark era of the mullahs’ rule is coming to an end. But until that day the PMOI shall fight for what it believes in and with it, it will carry the voice of martyrs like Zahra and the hopes of millions of people for a completely free and democratic Iran.

Naghmeh Rajabi is an Iranian Business Graduate

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/naghmeh-rajabi/my-aunt-the-iranian-heroi_b_970699.html